It’s that time of year again. Thousands of film makers, musicians, and media artist pour into town, overtaking the entire city for 9 straight days of craziness. While SXSW seems to be getting bigger and more commercial every year, it still maintains it’s cool factor. To me, this is due to it’s accessibility. Anyone with a badge, wristband, or savy and determined enough to RSVP to the events, can get to see great shows at club size venues for next to nothing. The most difficult part is deciding what you actually want to do as there are so many great things that happen at the same time. I’ll be attending the shows starting tonight through the rest of the week… I’m sure some interesting posts will follow.
Lastly, some of our artists will be in town playing.
Most notable:
Bright Eyes is playing a FREE show at Auditorium Shores on Saturday March 19th 7:30pm
Sorry for lack of recent posts. Crazy/busy/good week we’re having!
Open Labs Artist, Bo Koster (of My Morning Jacket) informed me they recently filmed VH-1 Storytellers. Expect the viewing this summer and be sure to catch them on tour.
Tonight we are co-hosting Leroy Miller’s “Live from Nashville” on our O-Live channel (10pm CST)
Also on O-Live we’ve started showcasing Studio One for the month of March! Join in every Wednesday at 5pm CST. I’ll be demoing software, answering questions, etc, etc, etc.
Once again, we are proud to be co-hosting Leroy Miller’s “Live from Nashville” tonight at 10pm CST. Tonight’s broadcast will be recorded for future viewing for those who cant make it..
“Live form Nashville” is weekly concert put on by Leroy Miller where he is using his upgraded i7 Miko LXD to put on his show.
What to expect:
Awesomeness! Leroy is a talented singer/guitar player/songwriter who is truly pushing the limits on live performance and direct interactiveness with his fans. I expect many artists to follow his lead.
Last Friday, my favorite band Radiohead released their 8th studio album entitled “The King of Limbs”
Needless to say I bought it and like all Radiohead records since “The Bends” I have listened to it every which way possible…. through my studio monitors, then headphones, car, etc. Their production has always been top notch, and there have always been interesting things to hear from track to track and all in all they have good songs. “The King of Limbs” is no exception. While the first half of the record is more like the Thom York solo album The Eraser with it’s seizure inducing beats, the last half is classic post 2000 Radiohead which is a compromising mix between their crazy electronic side and them simply creating music together as a band. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth many listens.
“Live form Nashville” is weekly concert put on by Leroy Miller where he is using his upgraded i7 Miko LXD to put on his show.
What to expect:
Awesomeness! Leroy is a talented singer/guitar player/songwriter who is truly pushing the limits on live performance and direct interactiveness with his fans. I expect many artists to follow his lead.
Open Labs endorsed artist Sheila E. has released an album with The E Family Band, titled “Now and Forever”.
The E Family consists of Pete Escovedo, along with his children Sheila E, Peter Michael, and Juan Escovedo. If that is not enough talent on a single album “Now and Forever” also features the talents of numerous special guests such as Joss Stone, Raphael Saadiq, George Duke and more.
Shimmer is a new FANTASTIC reverb plugin created by DSP guru Sean Costello (who also created one of my other favorite reverbs.. EOS) Unlike EOS, Shimmer adds heavier modulation and pitch shifting features that produce a beautiful “shimmer” sound when the feedback knob is adjusted to higher settings. With this, you can easily create ambient soundscapes similar to Eno, Lanios, etc.
Get the demo version here… http://www.valhalladsp.com/shimmer.html
Try it, if you like as much as I do, buy it! It’s only $50 dollars!
In case you missed last Saturday’s SNL broadcast, here’s a link to the Linkin Park performance, where they are using the XXL as the center piece of their setup.
“Hello everybody. Some of you know me from my Open Labs videos. I am Director of Artist Relations and manager of the L.A. showroom. For those of you who don’t i wanted to write my first blog on letting everyone know why I’m here now and how I came to be involved with Open Labs. Knowing that will help you understand why I chose to dedicate myself to Open Labs.
I earned my degree in Film Scoring from Berkley College of Music and moved to L.A. straight away. I landed a job (possibly the last paying job) as an assistant to a main stream film composer. It was blissful for me, being so new to the game. I was working and living in Malibu at a beautiful studio. I was introduced to Jonathan Davis and KORN and hired on to help program their “See You on the Other Side” Tour. They had just lost one of their guitarists to religion and had decided to hire a side band. This included Zach Baird, their current keyboard player. They had never gone on tour with any production samples or backing tracks before. Dealing with that was my job. I decided to take the sounds and samples into the Kontakt sampler by Native Instruments and host it in Ableton live (pre RIFF era). I needed a robust computer that could handle touring the world for years on end. I found this product in the Open Labs OMX rack computer (predecessor to the SoundSlate). After convincing a very nervous band that they needed a computer we made it happen. They toured with it and its backup for almost four years without any issues. Jonathan and I remain good friends and are represented by CAA as creative writing partners for film scoring projects. Success number one.
Following that experience I left the employment the composer in Malibu and started ghost writing for TV and scoring Indi films. I convinced Open Labs that they should let me try to do this arduous task on the Gen 1 Neko64 running Protools. They went for it and it worked as well as I had hoped and got me through a year and a half of scoring. This proved to me that there was something here. After all, I couldn’t afford all the equipment big composers rely on nor did i have the real estate. It was really the perfect solution for me. Success number two.
A short while later I got a call from Open Labs saying that Morris Hayes, keyboardist for Prince, was out in Vegas and had a hard drive crash and was in a jam and would I be willing to fly there and tech it for him. So I did and miraculously Morris and I had a healthy system back up and running in less than two days. Needless to say we were bonded for life. He is now my good friend and business partner in a publishing venture. Success number three.
From there Morris recommended me to Maroon 5 who hired me to program their tour on the Miko which led to many others including Keith Emerson, Sheila E., Michael Bearden and Linkin Park to name a few.
Success… I’m starting to lose count.
Eventually Open Labs put me on a monthly retainer to handle business in Los Angeles which led to me designing and building a high end studio showroom here in the countries biggest music hub. This list goes on and on from here still.
So you see, Open Labs and I have had a truly symbiotic relationship. I still score films on the XXL and Miko. I have no reason to doubt the product or people given the fact that this company and product has been at the center of many of the successes I’ve had since my migration west. I don’t even do it for the money, but I will always take it It’s really not about that though. This product is a vehicle for me and so many close to me to perform at their best and reach the highest potential. We never fail because we never stop working until problems are resolved. That is a quality I brought with me from the east coast. I’m a work horse and I don’t like to lose. The same goes for Open Labs which is probably why this relationship works so well.
“Now and Forever” also features the talents of numerous special guests such as Joss Stone, Raphael Saadiq, George Duke and more.
It’s really not about that though. This product is a vehicle for me and so many close to me to perform at their best and reach the highest potential. We never fail because we never stop working until problems are resolved. That is a quality I brought with me from the east coast. I’m a work horse and I don’t like to lose. The same goes for Open Labs which is probably why this relationship works so well.
